- Woman of the High Plains, Texas Panhandle
Sheet: 36 1/2 × 31 3/8 in. (92.7 × 79.7 cm)
Explore Further
Dorothea
Lange’s moving portrait of Nettie Featherston, slender and destitute against
the backdrop of the Texas high plains, is emblematic of the era’s depleted
land, bodies, and spirits. Nettie’s solitary despair, like the uncaring
landscape that surrounds her, is inescapable. From 1935 to 1939, Lange worked
for the U.S. government’s Farm Security Administration, tasked with recording
the lives of Americans hit hardest by the double punch of the Great Depression
and the Dust Bowl. Printed under Lange’s supervision shortly before her death
in 1965, this monumentally sized print was produced for her solo exhibition at
New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
ProvenanceEx-collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; [Sotheby’s New York, April 2, 2020, Lot 38]; [Howard Greenberg, New York]; purchased by MFAH, 2021.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
Inscribed in pencil, verso, lower left: No 90 [underlined] [inside cropping lines]
[cropping lines on all corners]
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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